Narnia - Palm Springs. What can I say?

I feel like a laid back, rat-pack type of cat!

My favourite thing here is laying in window of the RV while the sun is beating on it. My mom’s don’t like this because they worry that animal services is going to come and break in and take me because they are over heating me. I can’t help it, the sun feels so good.

My other favourite thing is sitting in the lawn chairs outside. This RV park is not much fun for me to walk in as I prefer quiet trails and paths. I did get out without my leash twice, visiting the neighbours on either side of us. Kathryn wants me to walk but I really don’t feel like it!

Catherine - One of our main goals on this journey is to volunteer in the various towns and cities we visit. We feel this is a great way to meet the real local people, the movers and the shakers of a state. Palm Springs was our first opportunity to do this and it was a great experience!

The first 2 days we volunteered at the Palm Springs Women’s Jazz Festival (www.palmspringswomensjazzfestival.org). We worked with amazing women from Los Angeles and Palm Springs; we worked with many fun, fabulous women who know how to make an event work. This event was super professional with headliners like Miki Howard and Kandace Springs. The variety of musicians was really impressive: So many musicians of different ages, walks of life and jazz genres.

At one point I was asked to take the lunch order for the band. 10 musicians that I do not know at all plus 8 other team members. This is somewhat like herding cats and a job that was actually given to Kathryn that she pawned off on me. I go around to each of them and say, “HI, I’m Catherine and I would like to take your lunch order” Show them the menu sheet and take their order. Little did I know that I was dealing with some pretty famous people. Thankfully everyone was gracious and it all worked out!

The first Sunday of our stay was the pride parade. Palm Spring Pride is a weekend and the streets close down to dance, sell and party everything rainbow! The parade has more floats than Vancouver and there are a lot less corporate floats. It was like a really big small town parade, with schools, support groups, political parties, local dance and theatre groups, plus it’s only a mile long so was done in about 2 hours start to finish. There were also 2 military snipers on a roof. A keen reminder of the recent mass shooting in Las Vegas and also that Pride still needs to happen as there is still prejudice against gay people.

The rest of the week was spent relaxing, visiting great friends and enjoying what Palm Springs has to offer.

What was Amazing

Palm Springs is always fabulous. Kathryn actually suggested we stay here longer but I had to say no. It would not be much of a journey if we only made it to Palm Springs.

Going out with Rob and Francine to Melvyns, an old hotel and pub and if the walls could talk would have more crazy stories than anyone could imagine. The staff is almost all original. For example, maître de has worked there for 40 years. While waiting for Rob and Francine to arrive, we met a lady our age. She had started the exact same type of journey as us. Her partner made it four months and then got sick and suddenly died. Her goal is to complete the journey when she is emotionally ready.

We took the bus to La Quinta to visit Wendy and Glori. The bus is $1.00 and took us all the way there. We then walked in to Old Laquinta which was about 3 miles down the road. Our goal is to try and get as many steps in a day so this was a good way to get our steps in.

One really fun day was going on a bicycle ride with Fred and Aaron (FRAC). It was fun for 3 reasons. 1. We had electric bikes and FRAC had manual bikes so we could keep up. 2. We saw amazing subdivisions with classic Palm Springs homes 3. We went to any open house we biked by and saw in the homes. If you are visiting Palm Springs and wonder what to do for a Saturday morning, I would suggest going to Open Houses. Fun, fun, fun.

What was Challenging

Our neighbour RV had some sewer issues so there were often wafts of poo smell
Kathryn’s 2 flat and my 1 flat tire (I am sure K wrote about that in her blog)

Lessons Learned

As a volunteer, it’s not my gig so just sit back and do what I am asked.
It is way easier to go to an RV wash and have someone else wash your RV
We can’t survive off the cheap phone plan. We tried, but everything from the Tom Tom Bandit manual, to how to ensure the seal on your toilet is secure is online.
While volunteering over the next year we are going to learn a lot about professionalism, working with volunteers, working with different personalities and so much more.

Kathryn - it is so easy to be in this city. It was a lovely 10 days of new friends, old friends and perfect weather. Would love to have stayed (all winter) but we are on an adventure, onward moho!